“Many people assume that to search for, investigate, and find strange creatures, it’s necessary to travel thousands of miles to locations as exotic as they are mysterious. Well, yes, sometimes that is true. Take, for example, the Chupacabras of Puerto Rico: a glowing-eyed beast that sports vicious fangs and claws and a dangerous row of spikes down its neck and back. You’ll likely only ever find it in and around the island’s El Yunque rain-forest.

“It’s the same with the Abominable Snowman, or Yeti, of the Himalayas: unless you’re a resident of the area, you’re certainly not going to find the legendary wild thing on your doorstep. The same can be said of the brontosaurus-like Mokele-mbembe which, legend says, haunts the deep waters of the Congo River basin in Africa.

“But, there are some monsters which can be found surprisingly close to home.”

But I bet you weren’t looking for him at the time; it was probably more like a deer and me surprising each other about a block from my apartment. The most detailed and believable encounters seem to almost never happen to people who are looking for Bigfoot. Maybe that’s because at any given moment there are vastly more people *not* looking for Bigfoot than looking for him, but I get the impression there’s more to it than that.